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Does my cat need urgent care?

How can you tell what needs emergency care and what can wait till tomorrow? Get care at once if your cat:

  • Difficulty breathing
  • Open-mouth breathing (cats always prefer to breath via their nose — if they show signs of open-mouth breathing, they are having severe difficulty or are extremely stressed!)
  • Panting
  • A respiratory rate over fifty breaths per minute (hint: count the number of breaths in fifteen seconds and multiply by four to get the total breaths per minute)
  • Excessive drooling
  • Hiding (under the bed, in the closet)
  • Not moving
  • Straining or making multiple trips to the litter box
  • Profuse vomiting
  • Sitting over the water bowl and not moving (cats are desert creatures and you should rarely see them hanging at the water bowl – if you do, something is wrong!)
  • Seizing or twitching
  • Any kind of trauma
  • Any kind of toxicity
  • Any string hanging out of any orifice (don’t pull, please!)

Our Emergency Veterinary Clinic in Brampton is fully equipped with modern veterinary medical technology for:

  • assessment and treatment of trauma cases
  • intensive care treatment
  • on-site blood and urine testing
  • radiology (x-ray) services
  • anesthesia and emergency surgery
  • continued care for chronic and life-threatening illnesses

Emergency Veterinary Clinic hours of operation are:

  • Weeknights from 7pm-8am the following morning
  • Weekends 24 hour service from Friday 7pm to 8am Monday morning